8^th Conference “Microbial Communities as growth engines for Greece”

VENUE | Institute of Chemical Engineering Sciences (ICE-HT) - Patra

Thursday 18^th April 2019

08:30 – 09:00 Registration & Coffee

09:00 – 15:00 Elias Lagkouvardos, Workshop – Hands-on | Analysis of microbial NGS data

14:00 – 16:00 Registration (On site) – Poster Mounting

15:30 – 16:00 Conference Opening – Welcome address

PLENARY TALK | CHAIRPERSON: D. Karpouzas

16:00 – 16:45 John Klironomos, University of British Columbia: Title to be announced

SESSION 1: Agriculture | CHAIRPERSONS: Α. Tampakaki & G. Zervakis

17:00 – 17:30 Guido van de Ackerveken (Invited Speaker): Plant disease susceptibility; on host genes and pathogen effectors controlling infection (Utrecht University)

17:30 – 17:45 Danai Gkizi: Priming of the plant immune responses through epigenetic modifications triggered by a beneficial bacterium (Agricultural University of Athens)

17:45 – 18:00 Sotirios Vasileiadis: Roles and interactions of the members of a bacterial consortium along the degradation of the recalcitrant fungicide thiabendazole revealed via multi-omic approach (University of Thessaly)

18:00 – 18:15 Chrysanthi Mitsagga: Characterization, identification and physiological studies of a pigment-producing tentative Pseudomonas spp. with antifungal properties (University of Thessaly)

18:15 – 18:30 Ioannis Kampouris: Wastewater irrigation is affecting the prevalence of antibiotic resistance genes in topsoil and groundwater (Technische Universität Dresden)

18:30 – 19:00 Panagiotis Sarris (Invited Speaker): Pathogens perception by the plant innate immunity system: from basic research to applications (FORTH - IMBB)

19:30               Welcome reception

Friday 19^th April 2019

SESSION 2: Food & Nutrition | CHAIRPERSONS: A. Kyriacou & G. Nychas

09:00 – 09:30 Kostas Koutsoumanis (Invited Speaker): Individual cell behavior: understanding and predicting the “noisy” microbial responses in foods (Aristotle University of Thessaloniki)

09:30 – 09:45 Ioanna Prapa: Effect of pistachio (Pistacia vera L.) on the fecal microbiota population of streptozotocin-induced diabetic rat (Democritus University of Thrace).

09:45 – 10:00 Ioanna Chalvanzti: Structural variation of grape yeast communities over space and time (ELGO - DEMETER)

10:00 – 10:15 Efstathios Giaouris: Comparative evaluation of the disinfection actions of thymol and benzalkonium chloride against adapted and non-adapted to thymol Salmonella biofilm cells (University of the Aegean)

10:15 – 10:30 Maria Kazou: Exploring the microbial ecosystem of Geremezi cheese using culture-dependent and -independent approaches (Agricultural University of Athens)

10:30 – 10:45 Nikos Chorianopoulos: Monitoring the effect of food spoilage bacteria on the photocatalytic activity of a TiO₂ nanoparticle based surfactant against biofilms formed by foodborne bacteria (ELGO- DEMETER)

11:00 – 11:30 Coffee Break – Visit to the posters

SESSION 3: Environment | CHAIRPERSONS: D. Venieri & I. Chatzipavlidis

11:30 – 12:00 Antonis Chatzinotas (Invited Speaker): Title to be announced (UFZ-Leipzig)

12:00 – 12:15 Christina Pavloudi: Identification of microbial communities by RNA stable isotope probing and 16S rRNA sequencing from the Benguela coastal upwelling system (Institute of Marine Biology, Biotechnology and Aquaculture)

12:15 – 12:30 Alexandra Meziti: Stable microbial communities in the Thermopyles geothermal springs over a six-year period as revealed by shotgun metagenomics (University of Thessaly)

12:30 – 12:45 Evanthia Kontomina: Microbial arylamine N-acetyltransferases: From xenobiotic detoxification to antibiotic biosynthesis (Democritus University of Thrace)

12:45 – 13:00 Myrto Tsiknia: Host selection differentiates intraradical endomycorrhizal communities colonizing endemic plants of sand dune ecosystems in Greece (Agricultural University of Athens)

13:00 – 13:15 Ioanna Zerva: Hydrolytic microorganisms isolated from an immobilized cell bioreactor treating red-pepper processing wastewater (Democritus University of Thrace)

13:15 – 13:45 Antonio Fernandez-Guerra (Invited Speaker): Mining the Ocean microbiome: from the known to unknown (Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology)

14:00 – 15:00 Lunch Break – Visit to the posters

14:00 – 15:00 General Assembly of the Scientific Society “MikroBioKosmos”

SESSION 4: Molecular Mechanisms & Microorganisms – Energy | CHAIRPERSONS: A. Pappas & C. Stathopoulos

15:00 – 15:30 Spyros Pavlostathis (Invited Speaker): Bioelectrochemical systems for carbon-neutral biofuel and bioenergy production (Georgia Tech)

15:30 – 15:45 Vassiliki Lila Koumandou: A tool for examining the bioenergetic diversity of microbiomes (Agricultural University of Athens)

15:45 – 16:00 Nikoleta Giarimoglou: The role of staphylococcal-specific glyS T-box domains in transcription regulation and antibiotic binding (University of Patras)

16:00 – 16:15 Emilia Grypioti: Characterization of RNA silencing pathways and physiological roles in the model diatom Phaeodactylum tricornutum (FORTH - IMBB)

16:15 – 16:30 Vasileios Vangalis: Nuclear behaviour during colony initiation and conidial fusion in Verticillium dahlia, (National and Kapodistrian University of Athens)

16:30 – 16:45 Christos Chasapis: The in silico reconstructed protein-protein interaction network of Streptomyces lividans (FORTH / ICE-HT)

16:45 – 17:15 Nassos Typas (Invited Speaker): Drugs & Bugs: unexplored relationships (EMBL)

17:15 – 17:45 Coffee Break – Visit to the posters

SESSION 5A – Round Table: From research to commercial applications | MODERATORS: M. Klapa, G. Tsiamis & D. Vayenas

18:00 – 18:15 Panos Kolios, Andromeda SA

18:15 – 18:30 Nikos Koutsougeras, Phytothreptiki

18:30 – 18:45 Tasos Kapagiannidis, ALPHA - Bio Wastewater Innovation

18:45 – 19:00 Stathis Kyriacou, Euromarket Ltd

19:00 – 19:15 Ioannis Zois, PPC S.A. / TRSC

19:15 – 19:45 Discussion

SESSION 5B – Mini Tutorial

17:45 – 19:45 Christina Pavloudi, Haris Zafiropoulos & Evangelos Pafilis: Metabarcoding analysis for the 16S and COI marker genes: from the raw .fastq files to the (M)OTU-table (Institute of Marine Biology, Biotechnology and Aquaculture)

21:00 Conference Dinner

Saturday 20^th April 2019

SESSION 6: Biotechnology - New technologies | CHAIRPERSONS: K. Karamanoli & E. Topakas

09:00 – 09:30 Cheryl Kerfeld (Invited Speaker – ASM Sponsored): Diversity, structure, function, assembly and engineering of bacterial microcompartments (Michigan State University)

09:30 – 09:45 Ilias Lagkouvardos: Sequence and cultivation study of Muribaculaceae reveals novel species, host preference, and functional potential of this yet undescribed family (Technical University of Munich)

09:45 – 10:00 Dimitris Hatzinikolaou: The suitability of Brewers’ Spent Grain (BSG) for 2nd generation bioethanol production (National and Kapodistrian University of Athens)

10:00 – 10:15 Antonis Katsoulas: Bisphenol–A interactions with the gut and feces microbiome of rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) (Aristotle University of Thessaloniki)

10:15 – 10:30 Maria Kalntremtziou: Dissection of the lignocellulose degradation potential of soil microbial communities through diversity and targeted functional meta-omics approaches (National and Kapodistrian University of Athens)

10:30 – 11:00 Shihui Yang (Invited Speaker): Develop Zymomonas mobilis as a synthetic chassis for lignocellulosic bioproducts (Hubei University)

11:00 – 11:30 Coffee Break – Visit to the posters

SESSION 7: Laboratory Infrastructures at National Level | MODERATOR: M. Klapa & G. Tsiamis

11:30 – 11:45 Charalampos Savakis: Mikrobiokosmos and ELIXIR: Reciprocal relationships

11:45 – 12:00 Nektarios Tavernarakis: BioImaging-GR: The National Infrastructure

12:00 – 12:15 Antonios Magoulas: EMBRC - European Marine Biological Resource Centre

12:15 – 12:30 Christos Arvanitidis: Construction and operation of the LifeWatch Greece Research Infrastructure (ESFRI)

12:30 – 12:45 Kalliopi Papadopoulou: OMIC-Engine: from omics technologies to genomic engineering. A national infrastructure on Synthetic Biology

12:45 – 13:00 Evangelia Chrysina: The National Research Infrastructures on Integrated Structural Biology, Drug Screening Efforts and Drug target functional characterization

13:00 – 13:15 George Angelopoulos: Waste Valorization and sustainable management of resources

13:15 – 13:30 Vassilis Drakopoulos: National Infrastructure for nanotechnology, advanced materials & micro-nanoelectronics (INNOVATION-EL) 

13:30 – 14:30 Discussion

14:30 – 14:45 “Costas Drainas” Fellowship, Awards for the best three poster presentations

14:45 - 15:00 Future Prospects for MikroBioKosmos

15:00              Conference Close